Chapter 4
Products
and Brands
©2022 | Basic Marketing
by Salman Zaheer
Digital version of the book is available for FREE: https://archive.org/details/basic-marketing-2020
1
Printed copy can be obtained from: https://www.readings.com.pk/pages/BookDetails.aspx?BookID=1370613
Chapter-4
Table of Contents
Opening Scenario: Video Games Industry
• Product, Services and Experiences
• Product Components
• Branding
• Brand Naming
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Chapter-4
Opening Scenario
🎮 Video Games Industry
• Video games are now played by over 2.5 billion people,
about one third of world's population.
Console Wars and Generations
• Home video games started in 1976 during ‘second
console generation’.
• Atari launched its video game console and within three
years became a $2 billion company. However, lack of
product innovation left Atari to its death.
• Computers became popular in mid-80s and people
converted their focus on them for gaming. 3
Chapter-4
Opening Scenario
• Video game consoles during their Third generation
offered superior graphics with Nintendo as its new
market leader in 1980s, as its rival was Sega.
• In the Fourth generation of console wars, Sega with its
Genesis (a 16-bit machine) gained almost 60% market
share.
• As PLC (Product Life Cycle) of 16-bit gaming
consoles reached decline, then Sony jumped into the
video gaming industry with its 32-bit console
PlayStation (PS) in 1994 at start of Fifth console
generation. 4
Chapter-4
Opening Scenario
• By 1999 PlayStation had about 8,000 video games and
became the first video game console to sell over 100
million (10 crore) units.
• Its graphics also appealed to adults and over 30%
customers turned out to be above 30 years of age.
• On the other end Nintendo's consoles remained
primarily for kids and tweens.
• Sixth console generation started with Sega's
Dreamcast in 1999.
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Chapter-4
Opening Scenario
• 2000 Sony launched PlayStation -2 that remains the
highest selling console of all time with over 155 million
(15.5 crore units sold), a record far ahead of any other
console as of 2020.
• Microsoft also entered the gaming market with Xbox in
2001. Sega quit in console business thinking that
competition is way stronger now.
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Chapter-4
Opening Scenario
• In the Seventh generation of consoles competition
remained among Sony's PS3, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and
Nintendo's Wii.
• In Eighth generation of consoles Sony's PS4 and
Microsoft's Xbox One were both launched in 2013,
while Nintendo's Switch joined the race in 2017.
• Sony remains the leader in terms of total unit sales of
106 million.
• Nintendo's Switch is fast approaching with 51 million
units sold as of Feb 20202 although it was released in
2017 - four years after PS4. 7
Chapter-4
Opening Scenario
• Newzoo (a global games market research
company) report for 2019, consoles (all three
PS4, Xbox One & NS combined) have 32%
market share while PC games have 23% and
mobile and tablets with combined 45% have
become largest gaming segment.
• Total spending is estimated to be 152 billion
dollars for 2019.
• It is already much larger than box office
(cinema) movie revenue of mere 41 billion
dollars in 2018 although still behind the total
movie industry of 268 billion. 8
Chapter-4
Opening Scenario
Video game development software
• Famous video game companies use their own software,
but a number of small companies are now utilizing
video game development engines.
• Two famous companies are Unity with almost 48%
market share and Unreal Engine with 13% market
Share.
• Fortunately, both these leading software are free to
download and to develop games, they only charge once
your game starts gaining certain revenue.
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Chapter-4
Opening Scenario
Famous Games by Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine and Unity
Fortnite
Final Fantasy Mortal Kombat Mass Effect
PUBG Borderlands Batman Series Street Fighter V Tekken 7
VII Remake 11 Series
Unity 3D
Ori and the Angry Bird Wasteland Temple Run Overcooked 10
Blind forest
Chapter-4
Opening Scenario
• Lahore based studio developed a video game in
2009 that become commercial success, it was
named as Cricket Revolution. Another game by
them, Whacksy Taxi attained status of no. 1 game
in 20 countries.
• Not to mention various immodest themes that are
lurking in several games leading to various
parental guidance ESRB (Entertainment
Software Rating Board) rating systems.
• Some games have also been linked to even
people's deaths.
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Chapter-4
Product, Services and Experiences
Product: Anything that can be offered to market for sale that might satisfy a
need. It is mainly used for tangible goods but is also broadly referred to an idea
or service.
• The central element of a marketing mix is the product, the other 3Ps, i.e.
place, pricing and promotion are finalized on its basis.
• There is a clear difference between product and service, the product
primarily being tangible (it can be touched like a car) and service being
intangible (it doesn't has any physical form that could be touched such as
lawyer's service/advice).
• Experience represents what buying the product or service will do for the
customer.
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Chapter-4
Difference between Product and Service
Services: Intangible activities or benefits that a
company provides to consumers in exchange
for money.
• Services make up almost two-third of the
gross world product.
• For example, just ask yourself how many
times in a day do we access internet
including social media. Microwave oven is a product that
is tangible.
• Services can be differentiated from products
on basis of following four attributes
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Chapter-4
Difference between Products and Services
• Intangibility: Services cannot be seen or
touched, felt, smelled or heard before
purchase. A doctor's advice is a service that
is intangible.
• Inseparability: Services cannot be provided
without the company's presence.
• Goods, products are manufactured then sold
to retailers but it cannot be done with a
service. A doctor's advice is a service that is
intangible.
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Chapter-4
Difference between Products and Services
• Variability: Service experiences change depending on the timing or
even mood of the service provider.
For example, a waiter at a restaurant provides excellent service but if
one day his son is not well then his mind might be wandering and he
may not be able to serve as effectively as he normally would.
• Storage/Perishability: Services are not storable.
In case of goods, it is possible to manufacture in advance when there is
a higher sales forecast as winter goods can be made ahead of time in
summer.
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Chapter-4
Products and services do not necessarily fall into one category or another.
In cases of services, employee trainings become extremely important because every
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single experience of customer changes with interaction.
Chapter-4
Product Line
Product Line: Groups of products that share common
characteristics, customers or uses.
• These are often sold to the same customer groups, are
marketed through the same types of outlets or fall within
given price ranges.
• For example, Dell's range of laptops.
• Product deletion is a process of eliminating one of the
products from the product line when it is no longer
feasible or viable for the company to produce it.
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Chapter-4
Products Mix (Product Portfolio)
Product Mix: Full set of products (all product lines) offered by
a company.
• Product Mix Width: It is measured by a number of
different product lines. For example, Gourmet offers milk,
soft-drinks, ice-cream, etc.
• Product Mix Length: Various different products within a
line/category. For example, Unilever has four different
shampoo brands in Pakistan.
• Product Mix Depth: Number of versions of each product
line like sizes, models and colours. For example, Lux
variants. 18
Chapter-4
• Engro Foods width would be four because of four different product categories i.e. milk,
cream, ghee and ice-cream.
• Product mix length of milk would be four because of four different brands under same
brand name.
• Product mix depth would include different sizes as 1.5 litre, 1 litre etc.
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Chapter-4
Product Components
• Non-branded products examples are open milk, yogurt,
fruit cakes, pulses or commodities.
Levels of Products: There are broadly two layers of a
product: 'Core Product' that fulfils the basic need.
Other is 'Augmented Product' that contains all other
elements such as brand name, quality and features
etc.
• For example, a toothpaste helps keep teeth clean and all
toothpastes do that. This core product is then enhanced Pulses are example of non
branded products.
to make it unique.
• Adding a brand logo and additional feature such as mint 20
flavour would help one toothpaste company to
Chapter-4
Product Components
Levels of Products
• Marketers hence have basic two levels of products.
Core Product (and value): It is the actual product that provides a
certain benefit or value to customer.
• For example, a mobile phone is purchased to fulfil the need of
communication.
• If a mobile phone has dozens of features and has very-high specs but
occasionally misses out on calls or fails to send text messages then it
would be deemed deficient on the most important feature of
'communication'.
• A product would be useless to almost anyone without the core value. 21
Chapter-4
Product Components
Levels of Products
• Augmented product: This level contains all other elements
such as brand name, quality standard, packaging, design,
features, warranty, delivery and after-sale services.
• For example, a mobile phone provides 'core value' of
communication or connectivity and freedom but Samsung has
made its product unique by adding features of using a stylus
and curved screen notifications, these are elements of
augmented product.
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Chapter-4
Quality
• Quality is the degree to which a product meets the
requirements of the customers.
• It is said that quality is the single most important factor that
helps the product to survive for long in the current global
marketplace.
• If an electronics manufacturer sells a product that overheats
or a dress that loses colour after first wash, the company
shall be penalized by its consumers.
• Each product should have at least an optimal quality.
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Chapter-4
Quality
• Quality can have many dimensions such as reliability, performance, serviceability,
aesthetics and even consistency.
Consistency: As the name says when products are similar buying one Suzuki
Mehran is pretty much the same an another.
• ISO 9002 (formerly 9000): ISO standards were initially developed by Switzerland
government to ensure consistent quality of products that are sold and
manufactured within Europe but now these standards are used in most countries
around the world.
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Chapter-4
Quality
Performance: Products that work really well like
Rolls-Royce.
• Not all companies target highest performance
quality, as getting such standards also requires
high involvement and initial costs.
• Total Quality Management (TQM): An
organization wide commitment to continuously Challenger space shuttle in 198
improve all of its procedures. exploded within 73 seconds due to a
small O-ring, a minor quality test
fault costing over a billion dollar and
seven human lives.
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Chapter-4
Quality
• Japan's car industry gives a good example of quality standards, as after
WW2 the country was in poor financial conditions. Toyota was almost
bankrupt but survived and introduced cars in US in 1958 along with
Mitsubishi.
• Japanese cars were not perceived of good quality but were fuel efficient
and those who purchased these found those cars to be lasting a lot
longer without any major repair work compared to American cars.
Benchmarking: Comparing own company with the best firm in industry, to
help improve. 26
Chapter-4
Features & Design
• A unique attribute or aspect is called a
feature. A company always has freedom of
adding more features whenever needed.
• A product's design includes styling, aesthetics
and functions of the product.
• Designing a product with such a diversified
usage in mind, helps build a product with
universal appeal. Samsung Galaxy Note Edge was released in 2014 and was
the first and only cellphone to feature a curved screen on
one side only. Some critics considered it a 'design' fault as
it wasn't comfortable for lefthanders, so Samsung came up
with dual curved screens afterwards.
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Chapter-4
Packaging
Packaging: The container or wrapper of a product
including the label.
• Traditionally it was used only to keep the product safe.
Now it is used as an important marketing tool.
• Many products are purchased by a consumer for which
he or she may never have viewed an ad. In such cases,
the packaging may serve as an advertisement or a silent
salesperson. Nestle Nido. Yellow colour of
packaging identifies Nido brand
while label provides information of
ingredients.
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Chapter-4
Packaging
• Some criticism on packaging: A lot of packaging material is
recycled by green consumers because some of the packaging is
extra and unwanted especially larger ones, otherwise disposal of
packaging is also an issue and leads to environmental waste.
Labelling: Labelling is although part of packaging but is somewhat
different as it often contains important information, such as sizes of
garments and in cases of eatables like chips a label would contain the
ingredients, calories and an expiry date.
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Chapter-4
Color
• Colour choice is also very important for the
company in regards to the product as well as
the packaging.
• If a garment company targeting females,
chooses a colour that is not appealing or
completely out of fashion, it may result in a
disaster.
• Each colour has its own impact as can be
seen in this image drawn by The Logo
Company.
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Chapter-4
Color
• Colour scheme: According to studies, 80%
brand recognition increases because of
colour consistency.
• Brands try to own a colour and show it
permanently in their displays.
• Gasoline providers own separate colours
like Shell, PSO and Caltex.
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Chapter-4
Branding
Brand: The name, term or symbol that identifies a good or service as distinct
from all others.
• For example, Mercedes' three-pointed star, McDonald's arc and Toyota's
three oval emblem are identities of these brands.
• The word brand has been derived from the word 'brandr‘ (from Old Norse, an
ancient German language) which literally meant 'to burn'.
• Branding is the most important and distinctive skill of a professional
marketer.
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Chapter-4
Benefits of Branding
A company chooses to brand its products for several reasons:
• It helps a company identify its product compared to all the others
in the market as brand names are registered.
• Satisfied customers of a particular brand like to buy again and
again because of their satisfactory experience. For example, Nestle
has a long history of making quality food products.
• When a new product is launched under the brand name of Nestle,
then customers purchase it because of the trust they've on the
brand Nestle.
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Chapter-4
Brand Equity
Brand Equity: Market value a brand adds to a product.
• Brand equity is a measure of strength of the brand in marketplace, as
tangible value is expressed in financial terms.
• Top 100 brands: Brand valuation is a very complex process to make
an estimate of a brand's worth. Some companies do that like top 100
list is generated by BrandZ (www.brandz.com) as well as by
Interbrand (www.interbrand.com).
• Check latest lists on these sites. Here is one as given by BrandZ for
2020.
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Chapter-4
Brand Equity
https://youtu.be/nsv4-42IaNw
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Chapter-4
Brand Positioning Types
• There are many approaches to positioning such as
'attribute based positioning' in which product
attributes are emphasized.
• 'Benefit based positioning'. A better way to position is
to directly tell customers about the benefit they will
get by using this product.
• 'Piano Click' clarifies the type of pen that it is and Brands based their positioning
on different attributes of products
'Piano Grip' is telling customers the advantage of as Piano emphasizing benefits of
using the pen that it is easier to hold. its 'click' pens and 'grip'.
• A third approach to positioning is considered very
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ideal, that is to promote 'Belief and Value'.
Chapter-4
Types of Brands
Manufacturer Brand: A brand owned and used by the producer of a product.
• The benefits of customer loyalty are then also reaped by the company. For example, Sony and
HP are manufacturer brands.
• Licensed brand: Companies license their brand names to be used on another product.
• Example, Porsche is primarily a car brand but has licensed its logo to tennis rackets, mugs and
even in video games.
Store Brand: (also called private / distributor brand) a brand owned by the distributor or reseller of
a product, he is responsible for the product's quality and marketing.
• For example, Metro has launched some own brands with different names, Victoria Departmental
Store has launched 'Victoria Rice'.
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Chapter-4
Brand Naming
• For global brands it is important to check brand name's
meaning in different languages, especially in the most widely
spoken languages.
• Waves (a Pakistani home appliances) brand with tagline
'naam hi kafi hai' (name alone is sufficient) is an example that
its brand name alone elaborates the types of products that it is
making, almost all containing waves.
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Chapter-4
Individual Branding Vs. Family Banding
Individual Brand: A branding strategy in which
products are given brand names that are new and
usually not connected to existing brand names offered
by the company.
Family Brand / Umbrella Brand: Using
family/company brand name for an entire product Haleeb uses 'individual branding' by
line/mix. using different brand names as Just-
Fruit for juices, Asli for ghee and
• Nestle has launched various new products and Flava for flavoured milk.
utilized its name that is associated with quality
food. 39
Chapter-4
Co-Branding
Co-Branding: When two different company's work
together to put their brand names on same product.
• Sunsilk Fashion Edition: Sunsilk realized that
its target market 18-24 year girls find inspiration
in opting for a bag, purse or dress of a designer
brand.
• Lego and Batman is co-branding.
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Chapter-4
Brand Development
Brand Development Grid: Growth of a brand by either expanding to new
product categories or launching new brands in same product category or both.
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Chapter-4
Brand Development
Line extension: When the same brand name is used for an existing product category.
Just the same product line is being extended.
• For example, Bata has launched shoes for school going kids, for ladies etc. all
under same brand name as well as same product category.
Brand extension: When a company uses the same brand name in new product
categories.
• Example, Maggi was into noodles first then launched ketchup using Maggi’s name.
• If a brand is stretched too far, especially away from its core products then brand
may be weakened as it may fail to grasp any specific identity in any product
category. 42
Chapter-4
Brand Development
Multi-Bands: When a company opts for multiple brands in same product
category.
• P&G has Head & Shoulders and Pantene, both are shampoos (same product
category) but with different brand names. Engro has Olper’s, Olwell, Owsum
etc.
• Fighter brand (sometimes also called flanker brand): It often happens that
one company comes in competition by some low-price brand.
• If they reduce their price they end up losing profits and if they maintain price
then they lose the market share which also results in lesser profits. Jang
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group launched its fighter brand Daily Awaz that is slightly lower priced.
Chapter-4
Brand Development
New brands: Microsoft purchased Skype; a new product category and a new
brand name. Engro Foods initial launching Olper’s (a new product of UHT
milk from fertilizer business).
• A company is not bound to select only one of these branding strategies,
rather it can choose any one or more based on what it sees is viable and
beneficial.
• A brand needs to be cared for whether it is of a company or an individual.
• Companies an individual is also responsible for his/her own a brand that
is built based on his/her actions and words.
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ُك
َج َز ا ُم
ُهللا
THANK YOU!
©2022 | Basic Marketing
by Salman Zaheer
Digital version of the book is available for FREE: https://archive.org/details/basic-marketing-2020
Printed copy can be obtained from: https://www.readings.com.pk/pages/BookDetails.aspx?BookID=1370613
